Clovis Unified honors bus drivers, recognizes hero who evacuated students from bus fire

Clovis Unified used School Bus Driver Day to put a spotlight on the kind of split-second judgment most families never see until something goes wrong. The district honored Silvia Neri, who safely evacuated four special-needs students from a bus fire and was later named the 2025 Bus Driver of the Year for Northern California.

Neri was driving the students home on Sept. 30, 2025, when she heard a loud pop and saw fire ignite on the bus. She tried to put it out, then got all four students off safely without injuries. The California Highway Patrol said an overheated engine led to the flames, and the agency’s school bus driver honor program selected Neri as one of only two drivers recognized statewide each year.

The emergency also showed how quickly a routine ride can become a public-safety crisis. One of the children on board, William Ruiz, a fourth-grade student from Hirayama Elementary School in Fresno, heard a strange noise coming from beneath the bus and warned the driver, “Smoke! Smoke!” That warning, paired with Neri’s response, helped prevent a tragedy on a Fresno County road.

Clovis Unified’s Governing Board had already planned to recognize Neri for her “extraordinary actions” in safely evacuating the students, according to board materials dated Oct. 8, 2025. Board minutes show the Governing Board and district administration honored her that day, and Cal Fire Chief Dustin Hail presented her with a plaque. CHP Assistant Chief Ian Troxell later praised her calm, trained and courageous response under pressure, saying she did exactly what every professional driver would hope to do.

District officials also pointed to Neri’s record of 162,000 accident-free miles as a Clovis Unified bus driver, a figure that underscores why transportation workers are so central to school safety. In California, School Bus Drivers’ Day was formally designated on April 28, 2009, as a way to highlight the service these drivers provide every day. In Clovis Unified, the message was sharper: safe transportation depends not just on buses and routes, but on drivers who can act like first responders when minutes and even seconds matter.